Pierce (County Washington) Web site defaced with bin Laden praise

Tacoma News Tribune ^ | 03/12/2002 | Paula Lavigne Sullivan

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Hackers defaced the Pierce County auditor's Web site over the weekend and replaced the usual text with anti-American statements and the phrase "Long live Bin Laden" written in Portuguese.

Election results from today's school bond and levy measures in the Peninsula and Clover Park school districts will not be available online tonight since the site has been taken down for repairs, Auditor Cathy Pearsall-Stipek said.

County information technology workers found the defaced Web site during a routine check Monday, six months to the day after the terrorist attacks on the East Coast and the renewed hunt for leader Osama bin Laden.

The words "Innocent Boys" appeared twice, followed by a message that said in part, "... long live Bin Laden," and that America is a "consumerist society" that "does not love."

An Internet search for Innocent Boys revealed that a group by that name has hacked into several other Web sites and services, including America Online.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department is investigating.

Information Services Director Terry Hale said he did not know how the hackers gained access. County workers were taking steps to prevent the computer "worm," a piece of coding embedded in the Web site, from spreading to other county servers, Hale said.

Pearsall-Stipek said the hackers were not able to take any information about individual voters.

"It's not any of our election files and it has nothing to do with voter registration or voter files," she said. "It only has to do with the information we put on the Web about past elections."

* Paula Lavigne Sullivan covers Pierce County. Reach her at 253-597-8542 or paula.sullivan@mail.tribnet.com.

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Friends let friend practice Islam, but only if they promise to bring their practicing out of the stone age.

[HairOfTheDog]

Kathy Pearsall-Stipek is kinda fun to poke fun at, though this would not have been my choice of fun. That dude (the locals know who I mean I hope) that shows up at all the council meetings could have done better than this.

[Free the USA]

Check the Bump List folders for articles related to and descriptions of the above topic(s) or for other topics of interest.

[strela]

I sure do miss attrition.org. They used to have a state-of-the-art mirror of defaced web sites.